A pregnant Israeli missionary, who had returned to her country to give birth,
died in the arms of a neighbour, surrounded by the jumble of debris to which
a Hamas rocket had reduced her home.

Friends of Mirah Sharf, 26, said she and her unborn child had struggled for life in the moments after the explosion that devastated her home on the fourth storey of a modest residential building in the rural town of Kiryat Malachi, 20 miles north of the Gaza Strip.

Manny Israel, a volunteer paramedic, had battled to keep Mrs Sharf breathing after the early morning attack - a retaliatory rocket barrage that followed Israel's airstrike on Gaza the day before - only to lose the fight just as the ambulance arrived.

"I came across on my scooter as soon as I heard the blast. I ran to the top of the building, pushing my way past the injured as they were coming out," he told The Daily Telegraph. "I found her alive and alone. She had a pulse and I tried to keep her going but unfortunately, just as the medics arrived, she did not make it."

It was impossible to identify the spot where Mrs Sharf had died, such was the damage to her apartment building. Her husband, who had taken their children to the relative safety of the stairwell, was being protected by members of their religious society, Nachlas Har Chabad and is unlikely to return.

The couple had only just returned from a religious mission to India earlier than planned in order to commemorate friends who died in a terrorist attack. The Nachlas Har Chabad faithful will gather on Friday to mark the anniversary of the death of two of their number in the Mumbai attacks by Islamist extremists in 2008.

Kiryat Malachi, a town of 20,000, had ranked among the fortunate few in the area of southern Israel, having never suffered a rocket strike before. But on Thursday, Mrs Sharf was among three who died. Next door, the bodies of Aharon Smagda, a 49-year-old father of three, and Itzik Amselam, 24, were found.

White-suited medics emerged from its doors clutching plastic bags after collecting each piece of the human remains. Six other people were injured, including two infants, one of eight months old.

Matthew Gould, the British ambassador to Israel, visited the site himself and described it as "desperately upsetting". He added: "We talk about civilian casualties, but to go and see for oneself, to see a family destroyed - it puts a very different perspective on matters. My message is that I stand with these people. The situation is intolerable".

With no school and all the factories shut, Kiryat Malachi's inhabitants loitered in the open spaces. Boys preparing for the inevitable call up to join the Israel Defence Forces were defiant. "We are not afraid. We want to have a go at Hamas until they are crushed," said Avi Jacob Tziko, 16. "It is time the terrorists were put in the toilet." In the meantime, Israel has drilled one million people in the south in a well-practiced safety routine.

Everyone knows what to do when the warning siren sounds. Different towns afford different windows for taking cover, depending on their proximity to Gaza. In Kiryat Malachi and Beersheva, the capital of the Negev, you have 45 seconds after the siren sounds. In the coastal town of Ashkelon, there is a 30-second margin. In the frontline town of Sderot, nearest to Gaza of them all, there is a virtually meaningless 15-second interval.

When the wail goes, people abandon their cars and run. Others throw themselves to the ground. "The injuries are mostly to the skull – so lie flat against the kerb and cover up your head," said one civil defence volunteer as the Daily Telegraph sought shelter from one siren.

"This morning there were three sirens and maybe ten rockets," said 17-year old Paz Azaran, a resident of Ashkelon. "I have not known a time when there were no rockets. If there is a siren in the night or day you have to run. The booms and bangs are scary."

Adina Azaran, her mother, said the increased rocket fire of recent days – Israel's government estimates 245 missiles have been fired in the last 48 hours – was a price worth paying if the military offensive in Gaza succeeds in restoring "calm".

"The people of the south [of Israel] might be suffering because of a lot of rockets, but something is being done to protect us," she said.

Yuli Edelstein, the Israeli information minister, told the Daily Telegraph that he had encountered overwhelming support for the Gaza operation. "The people are saying 'we are strong and we support you'," he said. "What I am hearing is 'please, don't let the terrible reality come back to stay."

Benny Vaknin, the mayor of Ashkelon, told the visiting minister of town's relief that the government was responding to a decade of rocket attacks by Hamas.

"We do everything we can to prevent any damage to the ordinary citizens of Gaza, but Hamas tries to kill our civilians," he said.